Apple is #2 in the desktop market behind Microsoft which has 90 plus percent. That's second place, hardly what I would call "lost in the computer market". Apple is not an Operating System company, they are a personal computing company. They are becoming what Microsoft wanted to become, the company that brings computing and computers to every aspect of your life. It was a brilliant design decision and business decision, period. Full control means there is a much better chance of it reacting the way they thought it would. Linux and Microsoft can not. Go visit any forum dedicated to either OS and read the multitude of threads where people are trying to figure out how to get pieces of hardware to work together, or figuring how why some piece of hardware causes the OS to crash. Apple works just fine with Samba, NFS, Active Directory as well as TCP/IP, WAN and LAN technologies. Which standard networking protocols were you referring to? Mac software definitely could use improving in the business environment, it's making ground but has a long way to go. But that's not it's intended environment so you can't really blame iTunes for not working in a way it wasn't really intended to. Viruses are non-existent, a couple of proof of concepts doesn't really count. We'll talk when Apple is responsible for a Code Red. Also never seen or heard a report of a BSOD on a Mac, they occasionally freeze, but there's not a personal OS on the market that doesn't every once in a while. Apple hasn't bricked my phone, because I'm using it as it was intended to be used. The purchase/activation for the phone said it was intended to be used only with AT&T networks, don't agree with that and you don't have to purchase it. But please don't come pissing and moaning when you break the rules and get your hand swatted, I could care less. My iPhone still works just fine. Again, they've already got one of the most viable and Operating Systems built from a BSD base, very similar to Linux. I hardly think they need to work on that. Google definitely has the engineering horsepower to make a devastating Operating System. I would say the chance that there is one floating around Google is very, very high. However they don't even begin to have the staffing necessary to support an OS in the market. Linux-style community support would be the only option, and I don't really think they want to compete with Linux for no profit. That's good stuff there, and I'd totally pay the $129 for the upgrade and run it like I stole it.
Actually most of apple's growth has been in sales of its mac's not its other devices. In the past quarter mac sales increased over 30%. Most of their revenue is also from its computers. I mean hell ive always used pc's and ive been considering a mac when i get a new one.
